The Effects of Race and Socioeconomic Status on Residential Segregation in Texas, 1970-1980.

Hwang, Sean-Shong; And Others

A longitudinal study of racial/ethnic residential segregation in 27 central Texas cities used data from the 1970 and 1980 censuses to investigate effects of 3 socioeconomic indicators (education, income, occupation) and other variables (age of city, city growth rate, percent of Black and Spanish population) on changes in Black-White, Anglo-Spanish, and Black-Spanish residential segregation. Descriptive and regression analyses, using standard indices of dissimilarity, were used to examine effects of the independent variables. Analysis indicated that changes in segregation were determined by different causal factors for different racial/ethnic groups. Results indicated that levels of segregation between Blacks and Whites and between Blacks and Spanish, and changes in segregation between groups over time could not be accounted for by differences in socioeconomic status. Analysis showed that improvements in social/economic status of Blacks did not lead to residential integration, and that the only socioeconomic factor that significantly affected Anglo-Spanish segregation was education, as high Anglo-Spanish segregation remained even when differences in income and occupation were low. Overall findings were that segreation between any two groups tended to increase with age of city, population size, and percentage of minorities in the population. (MH)